


Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

by Eiderdown



Series: Soldier of Fortune, Soldier of Steel [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Neck Kissing, Self-Indulgent, Smooching, Some Plot, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19404475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiderdown/pseuds/Eiderdown
Summary: Danse is fascinated by everything pre-War, including his partner, Grey, last survivor of Vault 111. An idle comment on a sunny day in the Commonwealth links to the events of a much more sinister night on the island of Far Harbor months later.Based on a canon line Danse says if you take him to the Starlight Drive-In. Self-indulgent smooching and ghoul vaporizing, ahoy!





	Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

Grey crouched in front of her suit of power armor in the shadow of the Starlight Drive-In’s huge dilapidated screen. It was rigged up to one of the yellow armor frames and she was sweating while she labored in her welding mask with a torch in her hand. As she leaned back to lift up the mask with a sigh, she tuned in to Preston saying behind her, “...and rebuilding is proceeding according to schedule, General. Turrets are back online and the water system should be providing service again today.”

“Sounds good, Colonel,” Grey said vaguely. “Danse, could you take a look at this under-plating’s weld?”

Danse crossed his arms and gave her a reproving look. _“General,”_ he said pointedly, “it’s imperative that we avoid interruptions to the Brotherhood’s supply lines.” He was still tall outside of his armor, even in his civilian's flannel shirt and jeans.

She stood up, dusting off her hands and the knees of her black officer’s uniform. “Sorry, _Colonel_ Danse. But we’ve got a division of labor here. You and I take out the raiders at Thicket, Preston handles logistics. And it sounds like he’s got rebuilding well in hand. Right, Colonel Garvey?”

“Yes, General.” Preston looked a little sour but saluted her.

“See, Danse? Nothing to worry about. Now, will you help me with this, please? I’d like to be prepared to move out as soon as possible.”

Danse looked at her sternly but sighed and bent down to take a closer look. “This seam,” he pointed, “needs to be considerably stronger at that point. Hand me the welding mask and step back to a safe distance.”

“Here.” She handed it to him along with the unlit torch and gave his back a reassuring rub. “You take a look at that and I’ll circulate around the settlement. Shake a few hands, let the people know the Sentinel is taking an interest in their welfare. Sound good?”

He nodded, mollified, and knelt down in front of the armor. Grey clapped Preston on the back. “Let’s take a walk, Colonel.”

An hour later, Danse sat back and surveyed his work. The chestpiece just needed a little polishing and paint now. He stood up, wiping his oily hands on a rag, and looked around. Grey was just outside the screen’s long shadow, listening intently to a woman describing a super mutant encampment she had stumbled over on her way to the drive-in and its beacon. When Grey noticed Danse looking at her, she made a note of the location on her Pip-Boy, shook the woman’s hand, and made her way over.

She stepped up to the frame, close enough to brush Danse’s shoulder, and he felt his heart beat a little faster at the casual intimacy. She always had that effect on him. She stooped to examine the repair and looked up at him over the top of her glasses with a grin. “Did you know you’re an artist?”

Danse coughed awkwardly into a fist. “It was only a matter of applying some extra reinforcement at the most critical points.” He stooped over next to her to point with a still-oily hand. “Here and here. I also repaired the lead lining to maintain the integrity of the radiation protection here.”

Grey put a hand over his larger one and ran it lightly up his arm to the rolled-up sleeve of his flannel shirt. She whispered in his ear, “So modest about being good with your hands.” Danse’s mouth was suddenly dry.

She leaned over to give him a kiss on his sweaty cheek streaked with grease. He pulled back and looked at her anxiously. “Grey, decorum-”

“I know, I know,” she interrupted then gave him a wicked smile. “Why don't we go grab a drink in the projection booth? No one’s usually up there.” Danse stood up a little too fast to be casual. Grey chuckled and linked her arm with his as she followed him to the main building.

As she had predicted, they had the booth to themselves except for a sniper rifle with a box of .308 ammo stored there. On such a clear sunny day, the window gave a sweeping view of every shack and store in the settlement as well as an impressive view out to the horizon. Grey proceeded up the stairs in front of Danse who was carrying a couple of sodas he’d claimed from the stash in the cafe below.

She reached the top and turned to him. “Nice view today, isn’t-” she started but suddenly found herself pressed firmly to the wall under his heavier weight. She barely had time to wrap her arms around him before he was kissing her soundly. The heady smells of oil and sweat and soap made her head spin as he pulled back to give her bottom lip a gentle nip and fumble with the clasp at the top of her uniform. She started to help him, but he stopped her with a firm hand around one wrist.

“No, let me,” he said softly, his breath hot on her scarred cheek. She switched to running her fingers through his thick dark hair as he undid the clasp and lowered her uniform’s zipper. He pushed the neck open and pecked kisses reverently on her collarbone above her undershirt and then up her neck. She lifted her chin to give him more access and ran her hands down his back to his hips so she could pull him to her even more firmly. As he felt her hands move down, he slotted a knee between her thighs and pressed forward against her. She sighed luxuriously and pressed kisses to his forehead, his stubbled cheeks, his chin before bringing a hand to the back of his head and guiding him back to her mouth. Time lost meaning and she forgot where she was as his lips moved sweetly against hers. Finally, he pulled back and her light grey eyes gazed into his deep brown ones. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he gave her a small gentle smile. He lifted a hand to run a calloused thumb over her lips, soft and slow, and murmured, “I love you.”

She smiled fondly back at him and lifted one of his hands to press a kiss to a grease-stained palm. “I love you too,” she murmured, just as softly.

Danse finally took his weight off her and she stood up, glasses askew and hair mussed. Once she caught her breath, she said, “I might actually need that soda now,” as she tried to straighten her uniform. Danse gave her one of his rare laughs and brushed a tendril of black hair back behind one of her ears before reaching down for a Nuka Cola and opening it for her with a crisp hiss. As she took a long drink then sighed, he leaned close to her again and said wryly, “Maybe decorum is overrated.”

She laughed and punched his shoulder playfully. “Have I not been saying that?” He chuckled and opened his own Nuka Cherry, leaning his elbows on the edge of the projection booth’s window. Grey joined him, resting her head on his shoulder. They drank in companionable silence for a long moment.

Danse was gazing at the partially ruined drive-in screen, then said musingly, “I’ve never been fortunate enough to watch a moving picture show before.”

“What?” Grey said, nonplussed. She lifted her head to look at him inquisitively.

“A moving picture show. Like the ones that played here before the War. It must have been quite a sight to see all the citizens in their vehicles lined up to watch works of artistic merit,” he said with an uncharacteristic wistfulness.

Grey considered the movies she’d seen here, but didn’t have the heart to correct him on the quality. She leaned her head on his shoulder again and he put his arm around her comfortably. “It was a nice way to spend an evening,” she finally said. “You could pull your car up to a speaker and then buy some popcorn or ice cream from the concession stand. Kids would sneak in flasks and make out with each other in the back row. Sometimes they’d show several movies in a night and you’d be up until dawn watching them.”

Danse looked a little sad now. “And all of that’s lost except for your memory of it.”

“You never know. We’ve found stranger things in ruined buildings. There’s probably some film preserved in a forgotten corner somewhere out there.” He nodded and took a long drink, still contemplating the ruined screen in front of them.

***Months later on the mysterious island of Far Harbor...***

Fog crept around the base of pine trees looming in the evening gloom. The only lights were the moon, the stars, and two power armor headlamps as Grey and Danse tramped along the broken road, heading north. Grey heard her suit’s geiger clicking slowly but continuously and it was starting to drive her a little crazy. _It shouldn’t be much longer to the Eagle Cove Tannery,_ she thought.

Faintly, as if it was imagined, a new source of illumination rose out of the fog in front of them. As they got closer, she realized it was a sign, still miraculously lit after all this time. She and Danse both stopped to shine their headlamps on it. “Eden Meadows Drive-In Cinema” it proclaimed inside a red neon swirl. Grey turned to Danse, her voice distorted by the power armor’s helmet. “I could use a break outside this suit if it’s all clear in there.”

“Let’s check it out,” he said crisply.

They detoured to the right into the theater’s parking lot and were confronted with a much brighter light not too far off. _No way,_ Grey thought, stunned. Unless her eyes deceived her, there was still a movie playing on the screen yards in front of them. She looked over to Danse, but his helmet wasn’t conducive to emotional reactions. They pressed forward and stopped under one of the eaves of the main building. She’d be damned if black and white cowboys weren’t riding their horses across a celluloid desert. The screen was missing a few small sections, but the movie was still easily watchable. She shot another look at her partner and his armor was as still as if it was unoccupied. “Danse?”

“I can’t believe it…” he said, the wonder clear in his voice despite the helmet’s distortion. Grey smiled widely inside her own helmet, but then squinted against the screen’s light. She saw a number of gently swaying bodies in front of it and heard some faint rumbling growls.

“Danse.” She elbowed his armor with a quiet clank. “We’ve got some company up there.”

“What?” he said, snapping out of his trance.

“There’s some ghouls up there. I think they’re… watching the movie?”

“Damn it.” He drew his laser rifle. “Any one of those damn cars could explode from stray fire and damage the screen further.”

“It’s all right,” Grey reassured him. “We'll lure them this way and check our fire. Let’s go up top to see if we can get a height advantage.”

Danse tested the door of the theater’s main building which was also still lit up in lurid neon. “Negative, door’s locked.”

Grey crouched to get a good look at the mechanism. “This would be easy to open, but I’d have to exit my suit first.” She could feel the disapproval radiating out of Danse’s armor at the thought. “I guess we’re doing this on the ground floor then.” She stomped a foot and yelled, “Hey! Hey, come and get it, you zombie bastards!” The ghouls milled around a little more purposefully, but they didn’t rush the two soldiers as she expected.

Danse looked around at their feet, then strode to pick up a stray wastebasket that had fallen over in one of his big metal gloves. He hefted it and threw it with all his suit’s extra strength in the ghouls’ direction. “Unclean wastes of flesh!” The wastebasket hit one of the ruined cars and bounced off with a loud clatter. That finally did the trick. The pack turned from the flickering lights on the screen and shambled towards them.

Laser blasts lit up the night as Grey and Danse fired on the ghouls, picking them off one by one. The remaining ghouls closed the gap quickly and they were soon in hand-to-hand distance. Danse bashed one in the head with the butt of his rifle, stomping it as it fell to the ground. Grey shot the leg off one of the hardier burned ghouls, scorched by some long-ago fire, and walked backward, firing at it on the ground until it stopped moving. In only a short time, the only noise was the clicking of geigers and the gunshots of a fictional shootout on the screen.

Grey scraped a piece of ghoul off her armor’s boot onto the ground and looked over to Danse. Once again, his suit was still as a statue. “You stay here and I’ll take a look at that door,” she said.

“Right, I’ll watch our backs,” he muttered, never turning from the screen.

Grey clanked over to the main building’s door and her armor opened with a hiss. Once she exited it, she made short work of the lock. The theater owners hadn’t spent too much money on their hardware apparently. She opened the door and poked her head in. Stairs to the right and a cafe ahead of her. She cautiously took a look around the cafe, but it was occupied by nothing but skeletons. She peered outside and was amused to see Danse standing in exactly the same pose as if no time had passed. Bottom floor cleared, Grey took a look up stairs and found the projection booth and a circuit breaker. It was labeled “Screen 1 Up, Screen 2 Down.” _Two movies,_ she thought excitedly. _Danse isn’t going to believe this._ She clattered down the stairs and called out, “Danse! Danse, there are two movies!”

That shook him out of his trance again and he ripped off his helmet with a grunt to give her a look of wonderment. “Two picture shows?!”

Grey laughed delightedly. “Two! I can probably restart this one-”

“No!” he exclaimed and then said more quietly, “No, it’s perfect the way it is.” His gaze wandered back to the screen as if pulled by a magnet.

She regarded him amusedly. “Let’s at least set up somewhere more comfortable.”

Since Danse seemed to be in another world, Grey grabbed their bedrolls and equipment and headed back up to the roof. A short time later, she was back, tugging on his large metal hand. “Danse, come up to the roof with me.” He was reluctant to take his eyes off the screen but followed her up.

“Voilà!” she exclaimed with a flourish. Their bedrolls, pillows, and a speaker dragged over from the projection booth were set up next to her power armor with a mixture of snacks she had scavenged from the cafe below and what they happened to be carrying. “Power armor instead of a car but, other than that, the full drive-in theater experience.”

Grey had never seen Danse exit his armor so quickly. “Outstanding!” he exclaimed as he settled on top of a bedroll. Grey smiled fondly at him as she lowered herself gracefully to the other bedroll and passed him a box of Fancy Lad cakes. He leaned over to brush his lips against her cheek. "Thank you. I've imagined this but-"

She put a finger to his lips with a grin. "Hush. Watch the movie."

The plot didn’t make a lot of sense since they had started watching at some point in the middle, but it didn’t seem to matter to Danse. Fortunately, once the credits rolled, it started over again automatically. He avidly watched what turned out to be The Fighting Furies: Last Stand at Fort McGee twice before Grey convinced him that they should check what was on the other screen. The moon had set by the time they started Night of the Fish Men’s Revenge. “So that’s not a type of mirelurk?” he asked Grey for the second time in a handful of minutes.

“No,” she said in exasperation. “It’s just a coincidence. There weren’t any mirelurks.”

He watched the second movie twice too. Grey was yawning frequently and widely by the time he went to the circuit breaker to start The Fighting Furies again. She almost suggested they call it a night. The snacks had long run out and it would be morning soon. Looking at his still-entranced face she didn’t have the heart and leaned over to kiss the back of his hand. He put an arm around her and she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, the sound of the silver screen in the background.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first kissing scene I've ever written and, boy, IT'S NOT EASY. Smut authors, I salute you.
> 
> Thanks to The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the title.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the read! Let me know what you think in the comments or smash that kudos button.


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